Olympic Snatch Techniques: The Classics in Action

The snatch lift is an opening lift of the Olympic weightlifting competition. It's a one stage lift and, by many accounts, it's one of the most technically difficult lifts to perform.

LIFTERS

This on-line demo offers a interactive study of the classic snatch lifts performed by the legendary athletes of the 20th century. It features lifts by such outstanding snatch masters as:

David Rigert, USSR/Russia, 22 world records in snatch

Khristo Plachkov, Bulgaria, 6 world records in snatch, the first lifter ever to snatch 200KG in the competitions

Yurik Sarkisyan, USSR/Armenia, 3 world records in snatch

Yanko Rusev, Bulgaria, 5 world records in snatch

Blagoy Blagoev, Bulgaria, 15 world records in snatch, one of the finest snatch persformers of all times

Anatoly Pisarenko, USSR/Ukraine, 5 world records in snatch

Alexander Kurlovich, USSR/Belarus, 6 world records in snatch

Yury Zakharevich, USSR/Russia, 20 world records in snatch

Yurik Vardanyan, USSR/Armenia, 15 world records in snatch

Asen Zlatev, Bulgaria, 4 world records in snatch

Naim Suleymanoglu, Turkey/Bulgara, 20 world records in snatch

Pyrros Dimas, Greece, 5 world records in snatch

In order to view the clips, please select the athlete's name in the drop-down menu and then click the "View" button to proceed. You may consider using the control buttons below the clips to enhance the experience of watching these almost forgotten today lifts by the classics of Olympic weightlifting.

LIFTS

The snatch lift, as well as the other Olympic lifts, has been a subject of various studies throughout the history of this sport.

Different researchers and coaches subdivide the lift in various phases (stages) for analysis. The number of stages varies depending on the depth of the study or simply on the approach of the researcher.

For example, my coach focused on four major parts of the snatch - pull, explosion, bar receiving and rise from the low squat position.

Arthur Drechsler in "The Weightlifting Encyclopedia" analyzes the snatch based on the "Six Phases" method of analysis of the pull based on the studies by the Soviet researchers A. Lukashev and B. Podlivayev - pre-lift-off (1), preliminary acceleration (2), adjustment (3), final acceleration (4), unsupported squat under (5) and supported squat under (6).

Regardless of your methodology, this interactive demo of the snatch should allow you to trace major elements of the snatch lift performed by the classics of Olympic weightlifting and view at your own pace the beauty of the snatch lift.

OLYMPIC SNATCH TECHNIQUES: Grab-the-Code Intsructions

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